Adam Dalliance on Nostr: When landowners were given tax-breaks on their farms in the 1980s, land became ...

When landowners were given tax-breaks on their farms in the 1980s, land became valuable for more than just the land.

Ownership of the land becomes a tax-hedging scheme, which inflates it's price.

When Clarkson bought his farm, he paid more for it than it's really worth, because it came bundled with a tax-avoidance system.

I can't say if he wanted it primarily in order to avoid taxes, that's for him and his accountants to know. Perhaps he'd rather it'd been cheaper and properly taxed.

But investment corporations surely are are pushing up the price of land because of this, making land a monetary asset rather than just valued by the productive capacity.

Soon farming families are priced out, and the land is owned primarily by tax-avoidance corporations and gentry, who rent the the land to the farmers.

Now the tax-dodge goes almost entirely to the rich, and working farmers pay them rent for the privilege.

Is concentration of wealth in monopolistic capital a side-effect of a well-intentioned scheme to help farmers? Or is it a deliberate act from the part of capital to increase it's own power and riches?

Hard to say, that's for the Conservatives and their accountants to know, but we can still reverse the effect before it's too late.

#ukpol #farm #tax